We Have Everything Before Us A Novel

A summer party and a thunderstorm bring relationships into focus, as three women must decide how to move forward in this humorous and dramatic tale of intersecting lives. Eleanor is bored with her two sons and a husband who ignores her when she reconnects with Phil, a man she knew in high school. Phil’s wife is leaving him because of his philandering, most recently with the younger Sarayu. Eleanor’s friend Kaye doesn’t approve of Phil, but she has her own problems: too much drinking and a fraught relationship with her husband and daughter, who are building a boat together. Poignant and acutely observed, We Have Everything Before Us is unsparing yet sympathetic as it details the unsettling junction of illusions and reality.

Esther Yin-ling Spodek is a graduate of the University of Virginia and received her MFA in Creative Writing from Indiana University. Her short stories have appeared in literary magazines and she taught composition at Columbia College in Chicago. She currently lives in Evanston, Illinois, with her husband and border collie.